The new plan of the Erechtheum is interesting in the light of the Chandler inscription. If one feels that the magnificent north porch determines the front of the building, then the first room is a satisfactory προστομιαῖον and lies in front of (πρό) the * στομιαῖον in which was the important object of cult, the φρέαρ (στόμιον). The following proportion may be set down: πρόναος: ναός:: προστομιαῖον: * στομιαῖον. Προστομιαῖον and * στομιαῖον are conjectured to have been the official names in the fifth century for the two chambers of the διπλοῦν οἴκημα of Pausanias.
The order followed by the commissioners in their report upon unfinished interior walls was as follows: In the first room entered from the θύρωμα, the προστομιαῖον, 12 tetrapodies were ἀκατάχσεστα. The phrase ἐν τῷ προστομιαίῳ favors the theory that more walls than one are meant. Then in the inner chamber 3 tetrapodies of the παραστάς,[7] i.e., that part of the partition-wall east of the door in the west cella. Then in the third room 6 (?) tetrapodies of the wall πρὸς τὀγάλματος. The order in which the chambers were examined for unfinished walls was that of Pausanias in describing their contents.
Again the new plan fits the treasure list of 306/5 B.C. (I.G., II,^2 733). The remarkable feature of the inscription is that it mentions three παραστάδες, first an isolated one, and then a pair of them, one on either side of a door. The single παραστάς, the first to be mentioned is again that part of the partition-wall east of the door in the west cella. This door was near the west end of the wall, so that the space between it and the west wall of the temple was negligible. Thus for one entering by that door there was a παραστάς on the left, but none on the right. When however he passed into the ναὸς τῆς Ἀθηνᾶς through a door which stood a little south of the middle of the wall (and opposite the door in the west wall of the temple) he had a παραστάς upon his left and also upon his right. The παραστάδες are interior walls on either side of a door which in the Erechtheum reached up only five courses above the orthostates. The paintings which Pausanias found in the first room favor the opinion that the treasures which hung on the parastas were on the south side of that wall--i.e., in the second room of the διπλοῦν οἴκημα. Whether or not there is any order in the enumeration of the treasures is a question. If there is, then it naturally begins with treasures first seen after entering from the πρόστασις ἡ πρὸς τοῦ θυρώματος, just as the record of the commissioners in the case of interior walls begins with walls in the first room, just as the description of Pausanias begins with the contents of the first room. This coincidence is remarkable, and is true of no other theory about the temple.